Opinion: Michelle Rhee Takes On Her Critics

1/22/2013 3:53PM

Michelle Rhee, founder and CEO of Students First and former Washington, D.C. schools chancellor, answers her critics who have taken exception to her recent criticism of education reform in the U.S. Photo: Getty Images

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... continue with Michelle Rhee ... former D C schools Chancellor and founder and CEO of students first is just put out ... of there a controversial state report card ... on which I ... if you can respond to you one of the smears on on these reports are that comes from MSNBC I'd like to put that quote up an under eighteen ... unfortunately what really has left out of her sweeping policy reforms is the fact that a child is not to mention all ... the doing well on the test as little to do with the child's intelligence ... or ability to perform well later in life and I'll show you respond ... well it never actually makes no sense whatsoever were not ... born that grading whether or not kids ... are two dimensional ... pocket ... of what we are upgrading is are we creating ... the great environment for children ... that we actually of students first least Beery strongly believe ... that there is no shortage of highly effective educators in this country people who want to innovate and do better ... we also believe that every child ... can learn at the highest levels if they are putting the right school and I'm so that kinda promise not The kids are than that good teachers ... the problem is ... that the children and educators are forced to operate in this incredibly ... bureaucratic environment that is driven by these archaic an antiquated ... rules and policies that really stuck I need them ... from being able to operate in the way that's best for kids ... so if you look at our on at our policy agenda that the things that we advocate forties and YouTube you call the country are still in the Comerci openings ... there they they say things like ... a what's put in place a compensation system where we paid the best teachers more money ... why would we not do that we did the men in almost every other profession ... in the country they see things like ... let's solve the pension crisis ... for teachers right in this the interesting one because when you look at Pension snowpack potential habitat trillions of dollars of pension liability ... in this nation it is a significant problem you've got jurisdictions that may go bankrupt because we haven't solved this problem ... so if we were to introduce a new system just for the new teachers relieved that people Merrill system that they won for just the new teachers we said ... let's create a more flexible and portable pension system forty on ... on ... we would actually solve ... the very day there and that come in here ... and bring it back ... into the back and that's majority of new teachers when you ask them they would prefer to have ... a portable pension system ... to discuss all the problem ... a and teachers like it won't ... last winter when she ... looked at the map just one more time so that viewers can see how many failing grades there are ... I and and you say the F states include a Nebraska Last Virginia Wyoming and Vermont of all places ... um ... the shell in clearly school reform it seems to be dead on the national level the Obama missed ration doesn't seem to be getting behind it ... um ... is that the untold story here that the reforms in the States and also coming from ... the left ... of all places ... well actually I would say that that the Obama administration has done some very important things for such reform ... ALM so the a race the top an action for example ... on what what the Obama administration did with that was take a four point three billion dollars ... in federal fines and said ok let's provide an incentive for states ... to enact reforms ... and through an initiative actually sparked more legislative changes ... then I think we've we've ever seen in this short period time in the history of the country's I think they're moving ... in the right direction ... but really the cancer Center at the state level are the states can agree to adopt the right policies and they can implement them while ... becoming so ... tidy ... can this reform be piecemeal ... by isn't enough for a state to say ... we're going to try this just in New Orleans ... or do you have to have a larger solution to attract ... the smart teachers in the investment that you need to really galvanize school reform that is that as a great question we really believe that school reform house to be holistic people ... are always looking for the silver bullet with one or two policies that I can put in place ... that will revolutionize the school system here that there are not wheat and thirty seven different policies ... in our agenda and just because you adopt one thing like parent trader ... or a getting rid of last in first out if not to change the environment you actually have to put all thirty seven policies in place ... to create the right environment in which schools knockout parade right and we're going have to leave it that Michelle Rhee former D C schools Chancellor and founder and CEO of students first ... we'll be back here with us again ... very soon think ...